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Louisville basketball’s Chris Jones described as ‘a living trophy’

“When you say you’re from Memphis, everybody just says, ‘Oh, those kids are tough,’ ” point guard Chris Jones said, relaxing in a U of L sweatsuit after taking 160 foul shots one November afternoon. “They have no idea.” Jones comes from a neighborhood known for drugs and violence, where “kids don’t make it to 18,” he said.

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Louisville basketball’s Chris Jones described as ‘a living trophy’

By Jeff Greer , The Courier-Journal
9:50 p.m. EST November 28, 2013

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Louisville's Chris Jones tries for two of his 20 points during the second half as the Cards rolled past Hofstra 97-69. Jones led the Cards with four steals.
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Chris Jones climbed into Jermaine Johnson’s truck on a chilly Memphis morning, ready for their daily ride to Melrose High School. But something was off. They weren’t taking the usual route.

Johnson, the young coach at Melrose, had taken the blossoming basketball star under his wing. He served as a pseudo dad for the ninth-grader with an attitude problem who was living with his mom and three sisters in the tough Orange Mound neighborhood.

“You ever hear of Joe Jackson?” Johnson asked. Of course, Jones said, he’s the best high school basketball player in Memphis.

“Think you can beat him one on one?” Johnson asked. Another obvious answer: Of course, Jones said.

Once Jackson had dismissed the rambunctious Jones with a swift, decisive one-on-one victory in a nearby middle school gym, Jones climbed back into Johnson’s truck and headed to Melrose.

His face was soaked with tears. Snot streamed down his face. He was furious.

“Cry now,” Johnson said. “Jackson will cry the last teardrops.”

That moment served as the genesis of Jones’ basketball career, the tipping point of a march toward his current status as the star point guard for defending national champion Louisville.

The 5-foot-10 Jones is second on the Cardinals in scoring, awing crowds with his über-efficiency as the team’s lead guard. He was the best player on the floor at several points during U of L’s first nationally televised game this season, a 93-84 loss to North Carolina on Sunday.

“I like playing with him because we attack, attack, attack. He’s relentless,” U of L’s All-America guard Russ Smith said.

Jones is widely regarded as the key piece in the Cards’ hunt for a repeat national title, an explosive guard with the scoring chops to make the NBA. He has a soft voice and sharp wit, but he’s fiercely competitive and forever cognizant of his extraordinary effort to escape the Memphis streets that chew up and spit out so many kids like him.

“When you say you’re from Memphis, everybody just says, ‘Oh, those kids are tough,’ ” Jones said, relaxing in a U of L sweatsuit after taking 160 foul shots one November afternoon.

“They have no idea.”

Jones comes from a neighborhood known for drugs and violence, where “kids don’t make it to 18,” he said.

There were certainly times when he stumbled, getting in fights or stirring up mischief — “I had a mouth on me,” he said with a grin — but the emerging hoops star eventually changed with Johnson’s guidance. He had no choice.

The boy who slept with the family pit bull in an isolated room in his mom’s house was more than ready to change.

“I had to kick him off the team so many times,” Johnson said of his early days around Jones. “I’d say, ‘Transfer to another school. I’m not picking you up anymore.’ He started finding a way to school. He started finding a way home. He became a man.”

Johnson watched the entire U of L-UNC game on Sunday with a lump in his throat, nearly overcome with emotion. He said Jones’ family goes nuts every time he does well “because they know what he’s been through.”

“I just knew it from the first time I saw him,” Johnson said. “He’s a living trophy. He doesn’t dust off.”

Peyton Siva might be the most revered point guard in U of L history. He’s certainly among the best. Whenever coach Rick Pitino answers questions about this season’s team, he mentions Siva.

“Peyton was a great point guard here,” Jones said. “There’s no doubt about that.”

But Jones changes the position. He’s not exactly seeking to be the second coming of Siva. He’s a scorer. He’s also not the typical newcomer to an elite college program.

He originally signed with Tennessee in 2011 and would’ve enrolled in the same recruiting class as Kevin Ware, his best friend. But Jones’ grades weren’t good enough to qualify for Division I sports, and Tennessee fired coach Bruce Pearl for committing numerous NCAA violations.

Ware enrolled instead at U of L. Jones went to Northwest Florida State, a two-year school in the Panhandle where he became a junior-college phenom. In his sophomore season he averaged 21.8 points, 5.1 rebounds, 4.1 assists and three steals and was named the junior college Player of the Year.

Current U of L assistant coach Kevin Keatts was the head coach at Hargrave Military Academy, a prep school in Virginia, when he first saw Jones in high school. He passed up a chance to bring Jones to Hargrave because of his attitude problem, but he revisited those feelings once Jones made it to Florida.

After a breakout freshman season at Northwest Florida, Johnson told Keatts he couldn’t afford to miss out on Jones a second time.

Keatts and Pitino made it clear: They didn’t just want Jones.

“They had to have him,” Johnson said.

But the transformation didn’t happen overnight. It took multiple epiphanies for Jones to find his way.

He and Johnson came full circle in 2010, when Jones and his Melrose team beat Jackson and White Station High for the state championship. He scored 35 points.

Afterward Jones walked over to Johnson and hugged him. The guard told the coach he was right. About everything.

“I always thought basketball could take me farther than the streets,” Jones said. “I didn’t break as a kid. Why would I break now?”

Reach Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter @jeffgreer_CJ.